


Icelus

by eretria



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Episode Tag, Jossed, M/M, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-04-11
Updated: 2010-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-08 21:12:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,809
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/79559
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eretria/pseuds/eretria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"Rodney forced down a harsh laugh. Come to terms with it? With what, exactly? And what grief?"</i> Sequel to "Hypnos and Phobetor"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to: murron, Auburn and dzurlady for the beta.

~*~

In his dreams, he was walking. More stumbling, really. Barely holding himself up, fighting his way through dense vegetation; through vines, strong as ivy slings, thorns on them like roses. They left scratches along his face, ripped the skin from his arms, made it almost impossible to move forward. When he finally cut through the thickets, he fell - a sickening plummet _down, down, down_, never-ending freefall, the sensation making his stomach revolt. He hit water, plunging in deep, And then the sensation of falling was replaced by that of drowning, the fall knocking the wind out of him and _now his lungs were screaming, but he couldn't come up and couldn't surface and couldn't breathe and was heavy, so heavy, and it would have been so easy to just let go, but he needed _air, air, air; _blood rushing in his ears, panic climbing higher and he only needed to kick his legs to breach the water's surface, but it was surrounding him and cocooning him and luring him, up and down had lost their meaning and he was tired, so tired and just breathing in would be so easy ..._

When Rodney woke up gasping for breath, with the feeling of water in his lungs, he understood the metaphorical quality of those dreams, didn't need Heightmeyer to explain them to him. Heightmeyer, who wasn't around any longer to do any explaining.

The Wraith had taken many. She had been among the first.

After the nightmares started, he avoided sleep even more. It was overrated anyway. Nothing some fake coffee and a good dose of stimulants couldn't fix.

Those left of his team shied away from him now. He had overheard two of them talking about Major Sheppard's sacrifice and had manhandled them out of the lab they'd been working in, yelling at them to not enter it again until they had left their personal feelings at the door. He had never been the most patient of men, but this was unusually harsh behaviour, even for him. Part of him knew this. The other part snarled angrily and told him to stop being such a sensitive fool. There was work to be done here.

Things went progressively worse from that moment on.

***

  
Two days ago, Beckett had finally pulled rank, and not nearly as reluctantly as Rodney had expected him to. Medical rank was a funny thing - not even Elizabeth could have vetoed it. If she had wanted to do so .

Once Beckett decided that Rodney should take a medically required "break" on the mainland, there was no use in fighting his decision. Zelenka was put in charge of the science team, the Athosians were briefed about his arrival and then Rodney was hurried off Atlantis quicker than he ever would have thought possible.

That first night, Rodney sat by candle-light in an Athosian tent and hated Carson. Hated Elizabeth. Hated Sheppard the most. For dying, for leaving them to deal with so many problems themselves. For not being around to celebrate their victory, no matter how small it was.

He knew it was unfair to Sheppard in a way, but Rodney didn't care. He hated. He despised. He raged. Threw his shoes across the tent. Kicked boxes. Slammed his fist on the hard ground next to his mattress and ignored the pain.

Athosian cloth was finely woven. The bedside appeared comfortable, the mattress functional but soft. It was the last thing he wanted to see. He didn't want to rest, didn't want to sleep. He knew the outcome.

When his traitorous body finally refused to hold out any longer, bathed in cold sweat and craving the stimulants even as his eyes slipped closed, he lay down next to the bed on the floor, shivering. His body succumbed to sleep while his mind was still stubbornly trying to elude its grasp.

_The screeching was deafening, the feeling of freefall making his stomach revolt. Everything around him was covered in smoke that made it nearly impossible to breathe, his lungs burning and a violent cough shaking him. He couldn't hold it, it was out of control and despite all his skills, he couldn't stop the inevitable. The air outside rushed, a high keening wail accompanying his descent. Impact was inevitable. He was not going to survive this. Flames appeared from out of the smoke, licking, closing in on him, caressing his flesh, burning away his uniform, meeting skin and tasting, scorching, eating him alive but there was nowhere to go, nowhere to escape the flames and the descent was getting quicker by the minute, the sound shrill and impact unavoidable and the flames had reached his hair now and it hurt, god, it hurt ..._

He woke screaming and flailing, impulsively touching his clothes and skin and hair for burns. He still felt sick to his stomach, the memory of the sensation of falling causing him to flee the tent and empty his stomach under a nearby tree.

When he closed his eyes, the fire was still there; he could see the city burning. He could feel himself burning.

The ocean welcomed him as he waded into the water, still fully clothed, intent on quenching the fire that refused to be extinguished. The water's cold seeped into his bones but didn't relieve the sensation of burning.

Halling - who was on watch - pulled him from the shallow surf half an hour later, wordlessly guiding the shivering and fatigued man back to his tent. When Rodney slept this time, he didn't remember his dreams.

  
***

  
His tent was outside the main village - as much due to his choice as to precaution on behalf of the Athosians.

An Athosian woman, the grandmotherly one he had seen Teyla with before, provided him with food and drink but didn't try to make conversation, for which he was quietly grateful.

  
***

One day, he found a pair of crude stick-figures painted on one of the equipment boxes he had brought with him for his personal belongings. One of the children had painted it "for the sad man from the city of the Ancestors", Charan explained.

He hid it in a dark corner, out of sight. He wasn't sad, after all. He was just damn angry. At least that's what he told himself each time his eyes started stinging.

He had too much time to think here. Which, of course, was exactly what Beckett - clever son of a bitch that he was - had wanted.

He remembered. Oh, he remembered well. And maybe that was the main problem. With a sinking feeling he recalled the look on Beckett's face. That mixture of disbelief, sympathy and anger. Kicking a puppy couldn't have been worse, and Rodney couldn't get the picture out of his mind.

_"Will you finally listen to me, Rodney?" The Scottish accent was grating on his nerves, rough sandpaper over skin - it was annoying, almost painful. The determination in Beckett's voice didn't help._

"I don't see that you have any news, so the answer is no. Come back when you have something important to tell me, because I for one am busy."

"When did you last sleep?"

Rodney turned, a sneer firmly in place: "After you and Elizabeth drugged me. You remember that backstabbing, don't you?"

Beckett winced but stood his ground. "Someone has to take care of you and you're definitely the wrong man for the job." He took a step closer, laid a hand on Rodney's keyboard, effectively stopping him from typing. "Your stock."

Rodney pushed the other man's hand away impatiently. "What are you talking about?"

"I want the stimulants that have gone missing from the infirmary."

"You think I took them? And if I did, do you really think I'd admit it and give them back like a good little boy-scout?"

"Do I need to remind you that --"

He cut the other man off viciously, voice quiet and dangerous. "I don't want you to remind me of anything, Carson." He glared at Beckett. "Especially not you. Not anyone. My mind is replaying the events in technicolor splendour whenever I close my eyes. So, thank you, but no thank you."

Confusion flickered over Beckett's face. "What do you mean, especially not you?"__

"Have you lost your grip on the English language? Disinfectant addled your brain?"

"Rodney." It was infuriating that Beckett refused to be riled by his comments.

"I don't see why I need to explain anything to you here." Hostility reverberated in his words.

Beckett looked tired, dark rings under his eyes, his posture screaming fatigue. "A class A descent into a stimulant addiction should be reason enough."

Rodney felt the blood leaving his face. "Out." When Beckett didn't move, he grabbed the other man's arm forcefully and pushed him toward the door. "Get out. Out."

Up until that moment, he hadn't known that under all that gentle and caring attitude Beckett usually radiated, there was steel hidden. Beckett easily freed his arm out of Rodney's grip and his eyes flashed a minute warning before he shoved Rodney against the wall behind him. Blocking his way, there was no way out.

"You will listen to me McKay, as I'm not going to say this again." People said that Carson's accent grew thicker when he was angry? They had obviously never seen the man angry. He switched into a hard-edged, unpleasantly pronounced upper-class English. "One: you will bring back the stimulants you stole from the infirmary within the hour or I will have your sorry hide thrown in the brig for theft and later on for de-tox. Two: you will listen to medical council and take a break from work. Three--" His features hardening even more, his invasion of Rodney's personal space becoming uncomfortably threatening, "What happened to Major Sheppard was not your fault. He made a decision and faced the consequences and there was nothing you could have done to prevent it. But ultimately, he saved us all. So stop belittling his sacrifice by making this all about you."

Silence hung between them for endless seconds and Rodney found it unusually hard to breathe. He didn't need to look at Carson to see what else there was unsaid. The unspoken: you're not the only one who's grieving him. But Rodney McKay wasn't grieving, no matter what Carson thought. Everyone around him wallowed in misery and that alone made him want to bring Sheppard back from the dead and slap him around the face for the anguish he was causing people. But he couldn't - for one very simple reason. His hand twitched once, face twisting into derision as he pushed Beckett away. "Belittling? I'm sorry, but last I checked, I was the one who failed to make the remote work so he had to take the jumper in person to deliver the bomb. Oh, you remember the bomb, right? The bomb I built? I as good as killed him with my own hands. So excuse me if I take this a little personally."

"It was his decision, Rodney."

"It wouldn't have had to have been if I had been--"

"It was my decision as well."

Rodney blanched, memory sweeping him up and taking a choke-hold. Carson had been next up. With the other jumper pilots captured by the Wraith it left only himself and Carson to fly the second jumper. And Carson had decided that he was expendable. True, his flying was worse than Rodney's, but if anything was supposed to work after he succeeded, if Atlantis and everything it stood for was ever to be saved, Carson had reasoned, Rodney needed to be here. They couldn't do this without Rodney. They could, however, do without Carson.

Thinking back, the white-hot ball of fury of being unable to argue against Carson's reasoning swelled up again. It swirled, was nurtured by the memory and the look on Carson's face - that mixture of reason, fatigue and determination. Back then, there had been fear, also. Fear Rodney had seen and had been unable to fight against. The decision was taken out of his hands, no quick thinking was to save the situation, he had been standing helpless as the events played out in front of him like some ill-schemed Greek tragedy.

He had wanted to punch Carson back then. For the audacity of even offering this madness, for being right, for leaving Rodney behind, for putting the burden of killing his two only real friends on Rodney's shoulders.

In the end, it had been only the burden of one death.

"Stop it, Rodney. No one blames you. And, knowing him, he would have been the last to do so." Beckett paused, visibly fighting to keep his own emotions reigned tightly but failing, if only by slipping into a barely comprehensible brogue. "Come to think of it, he would have been the first to ask if you were okay. He would have kicked you before he saw you driving yourself into the ground."

It was too much - the sympathy, the understanding, the sudden lack of anger, the memory of Carson's almost-sacrifice, the other man's grief and the knowledge that this was something he, too, was responsible for... The anger in him exploded with the force of a small nova and Rodney swung his fist hard.

The stunt had cost him two broken fingers from the wall he had hit (Beckett wasn't only tougher than he looked, but apparently also much quicker), this mandatory trip to the mainland and the memory of Beckett's face after the failed punch. He wondered which of the three was worse.

  
***

  
He hadn't spoken to anyone on Atlantis in several days - three days, five hours, twenty minutes, his brain added, uselessly - and it was driving him insane. They'd left him without even a radio: Complete isolation from his usual daily life, doctor's orders. The Athosians had radios to contact Atlantis if necessary, and if there was an emergency, they'd call it in.

He felt dependent and ineffective and it was driving him out of his mind. There was too much to be done on Atlantis for him to be sitting with the Athosians, doing soul-searching. Nothing was going to happen, anyway, his mind wasn't going to miraculously work differently because he'd been away.

  
***

  
The trip into the forest resulted from an especially violent dream of fire and burnt, protesting metal. He needed to feel something alive around him, something that wasn't human or Athosian or sentient in any way.

His pace was quick, the sounds of the village fading into an early morning breeze that ruffled the trees. The serenity of the forest would have been beautiful, if he had had a sense for it. For him, right now, it was no more than shade and refuge, an escape from the children and the elders and the sounds and the looks they gave him whenever he ventured out of the tent. In a way, Charan's quiet care was the worst. It chafed him, smothered him and he didn't want it. Just like he hadn't wanted Elizabeth's or Carson's care.

A yawn crept up, tickling the back of his throat.

He missed the stimulants. He missed coffee, even the fake coffee. The sudden burst of wakefulness, of energy, of effectiveness. Missed it painfully. During the past days, he'd been a shadow of himself, walking like a zombie, never really awake, his body in a state of constant fatigue while his mind screamed at him to get a grip. There was too much to be done.

There was no way he was letting his work rest. They might not have allowed him to bring a laptop to this exile, but they had given him pen and paper. Theoretical work was just as possible this way.

Even now, his feet walking by sheer strength of will, he was working on problem solutions and equations. They couldn't and wouldn't stop him from doing his work. It was all he had left at the end of the day. It was all they had left.

Lost in thought, he didn't see the protruding root. His foot caught, inertia took over and he fell, hands flailing and his knees connecting forcefully with a fallen branch on the forest floor. Pain shot through him, glaring and quick, the jolt pumping adrenaline through his veins, its effect none too different from that of the stimulants. Rodney swore, a tirade no one would hear. God, he was tired. He hated being tired. Hated he forest. Hated everyone. Hated himself.

Sat up, rested his head against the tree behind him and closed his eyes, heart beating fast. He willed it to slow down and felt sleep tugging at his mind.

When he next opened his eyes, the surroundings of the clearing seemed peaceful - the trees stood close together, forming a natural wall around the small area where murky sunlight filtered through the foliage. Shrubbery, its leaves a much brighter green, a stark contrast against the dark forest soil. Fallen leaves, brown and dry. Drops of red sprinkling the rustling carpet. Broken twigs hanging limply, the leaves already wilting. A body near him - bloody, scorched, clothes ripped to shreds, face a wash of colours from bruises. Dark hair matted against a gaunt skull. The wind picked up, the breeze turning into more pronounced gusts. High trees, roots protruding, insects bustling between them. Darkness between the tree trunks. The light painted irregular patterns on the floor. A gust of air moved the branches, bringing the smell of rain and resin and burnt flesh.

His gaze turned to the small patches of sky visible between the dense foliage and found it a troubled grey; dark clouds mounting, heralding an upcoming thunderstorm. The leaves shook, treetops swaying in the freshening wind. He turned his head back, already decided to leave before the rain could start, his gaze sweeping over the clearing, unwillingly resting on the impaired figure on the ground again.

Rodney closed his eyes, dug his fingers into the rough bark of the tree trunk behind him hard enough to send splinters under his fingernails, using the pain to will the nightmare to fade. The forest should have been a refuge, but it seemed that even now he couldn't shake the nightmarish visions.

They were venturing into the light of day.

The being was still there when he opened his eyes again, angled toward him in a seeking motion, mouth moving soundlessly. The familiarity of the lanky body, the dark hair and the bruised face was uncanny, making the fact that he was hallucinating something that hadn't even been in his dreams so much worse. Among the burns and bruises, the clear green eyes seemed a lurid contrast.

Thunder echoed in the distance. His hair stood on end. Breath shallow, heart pounding, hands cold. It moved, god, whatever it was, whatever had sprung out of his nightmares - it _moved_.

The first drops of rain found their way through the treetops, shaking him out of his stupor. He scrambled back, hands using the tree to steady himself. Rose, turned on his heel and walked back toward the village, feet unsure, more running than walking.  
What made this whole encounter even more terrifying was that the hallucination had looked like Major Sheppard.

An icy hand reached for his neck and ran a cold, caressing finger down his spine. He was seeing dead people. Maybe Beckett had been right. Maybe he was losing it, finally.

Dead people. Just like that kid in _The Sixth Sense_ and damn it, he had never known how that ended and had there been a happy ending at all?

He walked faster, intent on leaving it behind.

Didn't hear the faint: _"Rodney, wait._"

Kept walking.

Faster.

Ran.


	2. Chapter 2

Back at the village, he forced himself to lie down. During his frantic scramble from the forest, the only thing he had been able to think about was that Beckett had been right when he talked about the long-term effects of sleep deprivation. And while medicine still was mostly nothing but soft-science voodoo to him, the prospect of doing permanent damage to his brain was terrifying.

He could deal with the nightmares. He could eventually come to terms with Sheppard's death. He couldn't, however, deal with spending the rest of his life as an addle-brained idiot, unable to do what he was meant to do.

The Athosian mattress was a little too soft for his taste. There were stones under it, poking his back. The rain outside lashed against the tent-skin, steady, soothing, strong.

Hundreds, thousands of drop-drop-drops, forming a song that was hypnotising and lulling. Equations running through his mind, probability. How long did the sound take to reach his ears from the moment this raindrop touched the tent? The equation was ridiculously easy, as much as it was soothing to go through.

His eyelids fluttered a few more times, his rational mind fighting down the irrational fear of new nightmares.

Drop-drop-drop. Thrum. Gentle.

Probability.

Speed.

Sound.

He slept.

  
***

_Twigs and rain and despair. Wet leaves, moulding against his body. Loss of blood making him dizzy. Pain on the backburner, and he wasn't sure that was such a good sign._

Trees close together, forming a natural wall around the small area where the rain lashed down unhindered. Fallen leaves, brown and no longer dry. Broken twigs hanging limply where he had cut through them and stumbled to the ground, the leaves already wilted. The wind picked up, breeze turning into a more pronounced gust. No more thunder, just rain, soaking him, biting at his wounds. High trees, roots protruding, insects bustling between them. Darkness between the tree trunks. The light almost gone now, leaving the forest to unleash its horrors.

Dark hair soaked, drops of rain slipped into his eyes, over cracked and dry lips, reminding him of how thirsty he was. He tried to sit up but used the wrong arm to push himself up, broken bones scraping, shooting white-hot pain through him where there had been a pleasant numbness before. He closed his eyes and let out a howl of frustration.

The universe was a fucking bitch. A fucking, vindictive, sadistic bitch. He knew he should have died before. But he was alive now, and couldn't the powers that be please just fucking accept that he wanted it to stay that way?

But fate laughed. The universe laughed.

He was alone. After having been so close.

Damn it, McKay.

  
***

  
Rodney woke with a start.

From a neighbouring tent, he could hear Halling speaking to someone, muttering a quiet: "Yes, he is sleeping now, Doctor. -- No, we do not worry. -- Grief takes time. -- Do not expect miracles. -- He has to go through the grieving process in his own time and his own way. -- I do believe he is slowly coming to terms with it."

Rodney forced down a harsh laugh. Come to terms with it? With what, exactly? And what grief?

_Damn it, McKay._

Just those three words had jarred him out of the first real sleep he'd gotten in weeks. Maybe the brain damage was already permanent. Maybe he couldn't sleep more than three hours at a time anymore.

Outside the tent, night was setting in, hushing the village's sounds. He could still hear the rain, could hear Charan telling a good-night story to several of the children.

_Damn it, McKay._

Trying to recall his latest dream with a slightly fatalistic grimness, he wondered why it was the first time he'd heard himself speak. And why his voice hadn't sounded like his own at all. And why the scenery appeared so damn familiar.

The clearing, the leaves, the roots, the alignment of the trees ... He shook his head, dismissing the thought. Nonsense. His mind was clearly still too exhausted to be working properly when he considered giving those dreams more consideration than he should.

_Damn it, McKay._

It had looked suspiciously like the clearing he'd been on when he'd had the hallucination of Sheppard.

But that was just his brain coping with the day's events. Wasn't it?

The leaves of the broken branches had been completely wilted in the dream.

Completely wilted.

_He was alive now and wanted it to stay that way._

Completely wilted.

There'd been blood on the dry leaves this morning. Not spots of red. Blood.

_Fucking, vindictive, sadistic bitch._

He remembered green eyes.

Hallucinations couldn't possibly be that lucid, could they?

_Damn it, McKay._

This was insane. _Insane._ And yet ...

"Oh, god."

Rodney bolted out of the bed, foregoing shoes and jacket, only grabbing a flashlight.

His hands shook. His brain went into meltdown, and damn him if he cared.

Night welcomed him as he tore into the forest.

The concerned voices of Halling and Charan faded under the sound of his heart hammering in his ears.

The light in front of him flitted over the forest floor .

Erratic.

Shaky.

  
***

  
If he ever got back to earth, he thought irrationally while he moved through the dark forest, he'd have to thank his father's best friend for taking him on those wilderness trips to "get that boy out in the open at least twice a year". He had hated them with a passion when he was a child but now found himself being grateful for being taught what he thought he'd never need in a lab.

His bare feet hurt by the time he reached the clearing he'd been on this morning, cuts and bruises and gashes visible among the dirt when he held the flashlight down for a moment and yes, that'd be a healthy infection and was Tetanus likely here?

He tried to breathe normally but found that it was impossible - from exertion, but much more from panic. Panic that - now he was here - threatened to overwhelm him. Maybe he was insane. Maybe he'd just been hallucinating again. Maybe he'd made the wrong assumption and it had really just been a dream and ... The flashlight's beam moved over the clearing, still quivering. Once. Twice. Too quick to see. His unsteady hands didn't help.

He did it again. More slowly this time. Eyes flickering over the clearing, taking in dark tree-trunks, the eyes of an animal in the distance. Wet leaves, broken twigs, fallen branches, dead wood on the floor.

No person. Nothing.

If there really had been blood, it had been washed away by the rain.

And he felt stupid, all of a sudden. He'd chased here on nothing but the stupid assumption that his dream had been ... what, prophetic? He felt the urge to break into hysteric laughter. Excess adrenaline leaving his system, he also realised that it was cold in his soaked clothes and the still falling rain.

The light meandered over the clearing one final time, moving broader, with less purpose and more fatigue.

Branches, wet leaves, rain dripping from the shrubbery, tree-trunks, roots, a hand.

Rodney stopped moving. Stopped breathing. Stopped thinking.

Slowly, the small sliver of light wandered from the hand to an arm. To a body. To a face.

A face barely recognisable under the bruises. But just barely.

"Oh god."

The next few moments where a flurry he wouldn't be able to piece together fully afterwards. Legs moving, knees falling to the ground, hands shaking, touching the much too still body of John Sheppard - _real, real, not a hallucination, warm and flesh and bone and **real**_ \- then noticing the injuries and Rodney was talking, talking, talking as if Sheppard's life depended on it.

"Stupid bastard. You stupid, reckless, hero-complex-ridden, irresponsible, immature, out-of-your-mind bastard."

Injuries, so many injuries - broken arm, cuts, bruises, burns, skin ripped from his arms - the smell of blood and sweat and fear and burned skin - _he's alive!_ \- Rodney tried to swallow against the nausea that was mounting when he noticed that he'd seen those injuries occur and - _it doesn't matter now, he's alive make sure he stays that way! _\- that they were now in front of him and stealing his breath with their enormity - _He's bleeding, oh god, he's bleeding and there's too much --_

His whole mind went utterly quiet when John Sheppard cracked open a swollen eye and whispered something that almost drowned in the sound of Rodney's breathing and the still falling rain.

"What took you so damn long, genius?"


	3. Chapter 3

"Get out of here, Rodney, please. Take a shower, grab something to eat and sleep."

"Like that's gonna --"

Beckett crossed his arms in front of him, inclining his head. "It wasn't a suggestion."

Rodney's eyes narrowed, disbelief bubbling up. "Are you threatening me?"

"Do I have to?"

This whole argument would be so much easier if Beckett didn't look so damn tired and weary.

Reason. The other man would have to see reason. "Look, Carson, when he wakes up, I need to be here, there'll be questions, and I --."

"If."

The word was too big and hung gloomily in the infirmary. The following silence was oppressive. Rodney felt a thus far dormant headache launch into a piercing pain.

"You said --."

All of a sudden, frantic motion broke out in the ICU. Machines wailed, a high, alien sound in the lofty room, monitors burst into overdrive, graphs racing. The nurses scrambled close, gestures hurried and faces drawn with concern.

"Dr. Beckett!"

Beckett whirled around, moving faster than Rodney would have thought possible. Beckett was a live-wire suddenly, brimming with energy where moments ago he had appeared too exhausted to even have an argument. That change alone was more worrisome than anything Rodney could have imagined.

The nurse's words sounded clipped. "Intracranial complications."

He picked up a stream of medical terms that made no sense to him.

Reaching for Beckett blindly just as the man was about to sprint into the ICU, Rodney held his arm in a death-grip. "Complications? Wh -- what does that mean? Carson?"

Beckett's hand on his was trying to break Rodney's grip. He seemed reluctant, however, almost as if he was handling something fragile. "Rodney, get out of here."

"Not before you tell me what's happening in there. What the hell is happening to him?"

"I don't have time for this now. Let go. I need to get in there."

"Just answer my question, Carson, what's happening in there?" His hold grew stronger, bruising and not caring about it.

"You're a smart man, Rodney, you know what an intracranial haematoma can do. I know that you care about the Major, but if I don't get in there and do my job right now ..." He didn't need to finish the sentence.

Beckett freed his arm and hurried off toward the wash-basin, grabbing a coat and a mask on the way, shouting orders to the nurses, calling for anaesthesia. It left Rodney standing between two beds, feeling more helpless than ever before. "Carson?" The two syllables cracked, sounding too small.

Beckett turned to him one final time, hair now hidden under a surgical cap and mask, only the eyes visible.

"Sergeant Stackhouse, please bring Dr. McKay to his quarters. See that he gets a meal and make sure that he doesn't leave them for the next twelve hours unless he has Dr. Weir's express permission."

Stackhouse stepped in without transition, his presence quietly threatening, but pointed in the wrong direction. "No can do, doc. He has a right to be here."

Beckett's eyes flashed over the rim of the surgical mask while he scrubbed his hands furiously. "I know that he has, Sergeant. But Dr. McKay is dead on his feet and a hindrance in this infirmary. He needs to wash off the dirt if he ever wants to visit the Major in the ICU, he needs to eat to avoid a hypoglycaemic reaction and most of all he needs to sleep to not scare the Major to death when he comes around again and sees him." He dried his hands with ruthless efficiency.

"Doc, we all want information --"

"Every minute I stand here and dispute with you could cost the major his life, do you understand that, son?"

Turning to Rodney, he continued: "I'll let you know as soon as something changes for better or worse. But please get the hell out of here now, I have brain surgery to perform."

  
***

The water from the shower was pleasant, scalding. It hurt just as much as it soothed.

Feet and calves and knees, slick with water and foam. Hands and arms, useless, robbed of energy.

The shower-gel stung in the cuts and open blisters on his feet. Foam drifted down his body, slipping slowly, bringing a long lost feeling of _clean_ with it that he hadn't had since the siege.

Back in his quarters. In his shower. In his city.

He slid slowly into a sitting position, taking the weight off his maltreated feet.

The shower-spray was like an echo of the night's rain and he slid back into the memory easily, too easily. With the memory came realisation and guilt. If he'd been a little less stubborn, a bit more open, he'd have analysed those dreams earlier. He'd have known straight away that it was Sheppard on that clearing and he'd have gotten help immediately instead of leaving him - injured, dehydrated and alone - for half a day, making Sheppard's recovery even less likely.

Believed to be dead. Declared dead. Found again and now probably dying for real because the great Rodney McKay had been too slow to understand.

Laughter bubbled up. What a travesty. What a fucking travesty.

Once the first sound was out, he couldn't stop the laughter anymore, felt it shaking his whole body, rushing out of him until he couldn't breathe anymore.

He drew a breath he couldn't hold, oxygen searing his lungs like chlorine gas. Expelled it, his chest contracting, letting out the breath in a wail that would have scared him on any other day, would have made him question if he was losing his mind. Clutching on to his shins, he felt his skull vibrate under the pressure. Laughter turned into gulping for air turned into sobs. Sobs wracking his body, ugly and despairing and primal. It was surging out now, a chain-reaction, unstoppable, inevitable. When the tears came, they were no relief.

  
***

  
Ancient showers didn't drip. Not after they were turned off. The droplets of water on his skin were chilling, draining what little warmth his body still had to offer. He knew that sleep would help but knew all the same that it wouldn't come.

And it was too much, eventually. The shower walls moved in on him. His heart started to race.

Head on his knees, he rode the panic attack, shivering, hands clawing into his calves. Knowing, knowing for sure that he would die, that his furiously beating heart would stop in only a few moments and there was so much left unsaid and he'd never be around to see if Sheppard would recover. His heart beat too hard and he was breathing too fast, hyperventilating, too much oxygen making him dizzy. Oh God, this was it. He wasn't going to make it. Was going to die right here and right now. Walls moving in on him, no more air to breathe, his heart too fast, too fast, his body couldn't cope and - -

"Rodney?"

A hand on his shoulder.

Rustling of clothes, steps.

He pressed his forehead harder against his knees, still on a shaky, painful adrenaline high, heart slamming against his ribcage.

A towel, draped around his shoulders. Hands carefully brushing the chilled drops of water away, drying his hair, finger-combing it, smoothing it with deliberate care and gentleness.

The touch felt familiar. Long, strong female hands. He knew the perfume well.

"Come to sedate me again for old times sake?"

The hands fell away and he heard a sharp intake of breath. It took him a while longer to fight the trembling in his limbs than it did to steel his voice.

When he raised his head finally, Elizabeth was still standing in the bathroom, arms crossed in front of her, radiating self-protection and hurt much more than strength. He stood slowly, wrapping the towel around his waist, deliberately not asking her to step out of the room for modesty's sake. He didn't care if she was uncomfortable. He hadn't asked her to come.

"You really do have a knack for finding me in my most vulnerable moments, don't you? What is this, a spectator sport? Helper syndrome?"

She didn't answer and he refused to acknowledge how tired and pale she looked. Walked up to her and stretched out his arm, underside up. "If you have the injector with you, do it now."

"Stop it, Rodney." She sounded tired. He didn't care.

"But why? We're having such a nice moment here."

"I was trying to help you. You were running yourself into the ground and you needed sleep, just like you do now. It was the only way to stop you from destroying yourself."

"No, it wasn't. You were just too busy being the good little leader to see the other way."

"Which way might that have been?" If her voice sounded small and almost apologetic, he ignored it. Didn't want to hear it.

"You're the one with the soft-science degree. Figure it out by yourself. And get out of here while you do."

"You needed help!"

Something in him snapped, almost audibly. "Yes, I did. But I didn't need drugs. I didn't need exile. I needed a friend. With a little help, I may even have found the Major earlier. Maybe he wouldn't be teetering between life and death if someone had just taken the time."

She swayed imperceptibly, the dark shadows under her eyes becoming more pronounced in the dim light of the bathroom. "I'm--"

"No, you're not."

She extended her hand, rested it carefully against his arm. It was cold. "Rodney, listen, I --"

He glared at the offending hand and she took it away. "Why? Why should I? It's over, isn't it? Not important anymore. What matters now is the Major." He turned away from her and walked into his room, not wanting to see the conflicting emotions on her face. Not wanting to second guess his anger at her. She had given up on Sheppard. She didn't deserve better.

"Carson said the operation went well." Her voice was professional again.

Rodney's hand stilled on the shirt he'd been about to take out of the wardrobe. Feeling a 180 degree turn of his feelings, he wanted nothing but to sweep her up in a hug. Blood rushed in his ears as utter relief settled in. He remained still however, closing his eyes and taking his time, allowing tension to drain from his limbs. "How long until he wakes up?"

There was no answer. He pulled the shirt over his head quickly and turned, finding the room empty apart from him. Blinked.

On his desk was a tray with food, carefully picked from his favourite dishes. A mug of Athosian tea next to it, the only tea he actually drank. It was lazily exuding steam. The scent of cloves filled the room.

He glanced at the closed door.

He didn't feel remorse.

Didn't.


	4. Chapter 4

Beckett was out of surgery and on the way to his office when Rodney limped into the infirmary. Beckett explained willingly and without unnecessary medical terms what he had done and what had made surgery necessary, even though a _valve_ in Sheppard's head was something Rodney still had troubles grasping.

"Will there be ..." he trailed off, not quite daring to voice the question that had been in his mind ever since Beckett had first mentioned brain surgery. There was just too much that could have gone wrong. One false move, one inattentive nurse and Sheppard could be ...

"Don't assume worst-case-scenario, Rodney. The haematoma was slowly accumulating after the skull-fracture occurred, that means that the pressure on the major's brain hasn't been the same the whole time he was missing. You found him just in time to prevent the worst. The ancient medical devices did their part to ensure a clean, safe surgery." Beckett smiled. "He'll throw a fit when he finds out we had to shave a part of his head, but there won't be any kind of brain damage."

Rodney shakily reached for the bed behind him and sat down. "Oh, thank god."

He closed his eyes for a moment, collecting himself, trying to bring up his rapidly crumbling walls. "When can I see him?" he asked when he opened his eyes again, glad that his voice had taken on its usual impatient tone.

Beckett ran a hand up and down his lower arm, pondering. "With the ZPM powering the infirmary properly, we could initialise the medical equipment that had been dormant so far. There was no handbook on how to use ancient medical technology, but from what I gleaned from the interface, it should --"

"Whoa, wait, hold on." Rodney's gaze snapped up. "Are you telling me that you connected with the city?"

Beckett blushed and ducked his head.

"Carson?"

"Not with the city, no. With the infirmary. "

"How?"

He saw Beckett shudder as the other man remembered. "Not voluntarily at first. It was as if the infirmary was sensing that we couldn't handle the amount of injured by ourselves. It connected when I was scanning a critical patient." Watching Beckett reminisce made the hair on Rodney's arms stand on edge. "There was this blinding flash of ... of _knowledge_, suddenly, of which devices to use to speed up the recovery, to help patients we would have lost otherwise."

"So, like the control-chair?"

"No, not like that at all. The chair is abrupt and frankly quite scary. This was different. More like someone taking your hand and putting the required tool in them."

There was more Beckett didn't mention. Rodney had the distinct feeling that he was just getting a sugar-coated version of the actual happenings. Scientific curiosity got the better of him: "Has anybody else been able to connect with the infirmary?"

Beckett shook his head. "Just me. I didn't let anybody else try."

"Proprietary much?"

The other man sighed. "Protective much. My gene is natural and already the connection nearly had me blacking out."

Rodney drew his eyebrows together, confused. "Why?"

"Dilution. The city has to make a much greater effort to connect with those of us with a weaker gene. It's causing quite a strong reaction in the body of the person it's trying to connect with."

"What kind of reaction?"

Beckett looked away, busying himself with straightening some wrapped syringes on a nearby table. "It's not important."

"If it wasn't important you'd let others try as well, so what's happening?"

"I told you it's not important. It's just between me and the infirmary, which means it's all voodoo to you anyway, so --"

"Carson." Evasive Beckett was never a good sign, and Rodney was momentarily distracted from watching the ICU over Beckett's shoulder. "What happens when you connect with the infirmary?"

Beckett turned away from him fully, his gaze locked on the ICU. The shoulders under the white lab-coat drooped slightly. "Imagine a long hot needle driven straight through your skull into your brain." He breathed out, hands clenching the table until his knuckles went white. "Imagine all your muscles seizing up in the most painful spasms you'll ever experience."

Rodney's mind went blank for a moment, trying to cope with what he'd just been told. "But why didn't we notice that when you sat in the control chair?"

Flashing a wry grin in his direction, Beckett said: "Why do you think I didn't want to get in it?"

"Oh." Rodney couldn't think of a better answer. "So how do you ..."

"It gets better with practice. And the infirmary is a much gentler connector than the chair."

Beckett turned toward the ICU, nodding to Dr. Biro who was checking the vital signs and adjusting the IV. "To come back to your initial question, it shouldn't take more than a week for him to heal fully, now that the medical devices are all working. You should be able to visit him once he's stable."

And Beckett was clever, very clever. Bringing up the major's recovery was sure to stop all other thoughts, all other questions regarding Beckett and the infirmary. Bringing it up made sure Rodney didn't ask any more questions because his brain was preoccupied with the how and the why and the when and why not right now of the majors recovery. He recognised the ruse but let it go, didn't want to argue now.

"How about we have a look at your feet now?" Another distraction.

"Hm?" His feet were the last thing he had thought about when he came here.

Beckett crouched in front of him, removing the heavy boots from Rodney's feet. He sucked in a sharp breath when he examined the soles. "You should have come earlier."

Rodney waved a hand distractedly. "More important things."

"He's safe now, Rodney. Time to get back to your old, hypochondriac self."

He just stared at Beckett as if the other man had lost his mind, the joke lost on him.

Beckett rose, moving with a tired calm to retrieve bandages and antiseptic. "Since I didn't manage to: who told you about the Major, anyway?" he asked when he motioned for Rodney to turn on the bed and rest his legs in an elevated position.

"Hm?" The question seemed inane, but Rodney answered for the sake of politeness. "Elizabeth."

"How was she?" Beckett asked seemingly casual while cleaning the cuts on Rodney's feet.

"Fine," he answered, not really caring about small-talk any longer. His gaze was glued to the prone figure in the ICU.

"Rodney."

His attention wandered back to Beckett. "What?"

"I want to know how she was. How she looked like."

Disbelief and ire bubbled up, triggering a well-oiled reaction. "Good heavens, Carson, if you want to propose to her do it yourself and don't make me your Cyrano. Makes my teeth ache."

Pain lanced through him when the antiseptic touched a deep cut. He inhaled sharply. That had almost felt like a retribution.

"Are you completely daft, man?" Beckett's eyes were narrow and incredulous.

"Why? Hit too close to home? I can send her to your door next time she comes to me. I really don't want to deal with her now anyway." He couldn't contain the smug, self-satisfied grin from spreading over his face.

Beckett breathed deeply. In a way that reminded Rodney uncomfortably of their last argument. "You incredibly stupid, egotistic arse," Beckett finally ground out.

Rodney blinked. He had never heard Beckett swear in earnest before. Never this personal, this deliberately degrading at any rate. "What?"

Beckett finished cleaning the cuts and reached for the bandages. His every movement oozed anger. "I only released Dr. Weir from this infirmary yesterday. She is on active duty against my express warning and she's not reporting back to me about her status and I have simply been too busy to check up on her. So when I'm asking how she is, I'm not joking."

The steel was back in Beckett's eyes and Rodney felt the distinct urge to cross his arms in front of him to shield the hostility.

"She looked pale, okay? And tired. I didn't really look for more, given ..." He stopped, his attention snared by a movement in the ICU.

"Given what?"

Rodney looked back to the major where a nurse was currently changing bandages. God, he looked so damn small in that bed. Too slim under the covers, too --

"Given what, Rodney?" Beckett's voice was insistent, allowed no lapse on Rodney's part.

Rodney breathed out, refusing for it to sound like a sigh. "We had an argument."

"You what?"

"An argument. Are you deaf?"

Beckett bandaged his feet with calm professionalism, not letting any of his anger slip into the task at hand. His voice - the eerie upper-class English enunciation again - was an entirely different matter, however. "Are you aware that I had Elizabeth in for a perforated ulcer until yesterday?"

***

  
Well. That had been nothing short of spectacular. He was sure that the entire city would be talking about the heated argument he'd had with Beckett. That the doctor had more or less manhandled him through the corridors and into his room didn't help matters of secrecy much.

At the moment, though, Rodney couldn't have cared less.

Yes, he knew he should feel sorry for Elizabeth, and in a way, he did, after all, he was _angry_ with her, but not heartless. But didn't Beckett understand that Rodney had a right to his anger? The betrayal, a betrayal Carson had been part of, still stung. The fact that Elizabeth had let the major go still was an open wound. The fact that she'd written the eulogy two days after the major's disappearance and had exiled him from Atlantis without even listening to his side was a handful of salt in that wound.

He had a right to be angry with her. Angry with anyone. Angry with himself.

If only, a small part of his mind insisted, because it kept him on his feet.

And then there was the matter of those dreams. He believed in prophetic dreams as much as he believed in the Easter bunny. So there had to be more to them. But what? Was there even the remote chance that the city was responsible for that strange connection?

Rodney shifted on his bed, feet carefully propped up. The room was almost dark and the low hum of the city around him, a city that was now alive and thriving on the fully charged ZPM, should have been soothing. However, it did nothing to soothe him tonight. It gnawed at him, the knowledge that he didn't know exactly what had happened.

His mind went from newly functioning systems to Beckett and his connection with the infirmary and immediately wondered of the major had ever felt any pain when he sat down in the control chair. But thinking back on their first meeting, on that look of stunned wonder, Rodney knew that John Sheppard had never had the same problems Beckett had faced. The city seemed to know him and to welcome him. And, god, was it ever irritating. The military man simply had to wave his hand where the scientist had to work long and hard to make the equipment respond to him, and even then, it never seemed to do what it was supposed to quite willingly. In fact, the city sometimes acted like a spoiled child, only wanting its favourite toy and nothing else.

When the blip of Sheppard's jumper on the external sensors had gone out, Rodney had been sure he'd heard something like a wail of pain in the claxon of the alarms.

Even fully powered, the city's systems had been cumbersome, the shield only integrating reluctantly. Like a child, petulant without its toy. Like a lover, bereft of what was most dear to him.

Now that Sheppard was back, he'd heard people talk about how much energy was being re-routed to the infirmary. Again, Atlantis slowed down for John Sheppard. Waited with baited breath. Tried its best to un-break the toy. To mend the lover.

Rodney had noticed changes in his own quarters as well. They were warmer, the shower more gentle, the connection between his laptop and the consoles faster. It almost felt as if Atlantis was grateful.

But this entire line of thinking was absurd.

Wasn't it?

Was it possible at all that Atlantis had tried to connect Sheppard with him because it sensed that the major was still alive, but out of reach and without a radio? But why hadn't it tried to contact someone else? Why not simply stick a rescue operation demand on the main screen in the control room? Or on every single screen in the damn city, for that matter? With the ZPM fully charged and the city coming more and more to life, it should have been easy.

Thoughts racing behind his forehead, he reached for a glass of water on a table next to his bed. The monitor of his laptop went into screensaver mode, a row of equation running from top to the bottom of the screen, melting, dissolving then coming up again. His hand froze halfway when realisation hit.

The city _had_ tried to tell them. In fact, it had tried hard. Only by that time, he'd already been awake for four days and had thought it an overload in one of the computer consoles and had - in a long and complicated operation - shut the section of the mainframe creating the strange images on every screen in the city down.

A headache began to spread from the back of his head to the front when he realised that that had been the city's first attempt at a cry for help on Sheppard's behalf.

He didn't know if it had tried to contact anyone else in another way. If it had, no one had understood it or considered it off enough to come see him about it.

And the dreams of falling and stumbling and burning _had_ started after the misguided attempt of _fixing_ the city.

However, the idea of Atlantis somehow planting what was happening to Sheppard into Rodney's brain was too remote to be even considered a possibility. Why him, for example? And how had it managed to reach him on the mainland, hundreds of kilometres away from the city? And once again, and most importantly: why him?

_Because you were the first. You have the gene of the one that is dear to us. Because you never believed._

The city's reasons were clear and Rodney remembered now. Remembered Beckett telling him that he had refined the gene therapy after the personal shield incident. But was his gene really that different from the others? Did it connect him to Sheppard? The thought alone was as frightening as it was fascinating.

But it all boiled down to that one thing again: Sheppard. He couldn't even think without having him pop up at every niche and corner. And as long as he thought and none of his questions were answered, he'd never get any of the sleep Beckett insisted he got.

Earlier, in the halls, when Beckett had dragged him along, he'd heard the awed voices of a group of military men and scientists, talking about what a miracle it was that the major was still alive and that he was truly a hero. Hero. Rodney had felt the need to punch every single one of them. A kamikaze act didn't equal courage or intelligence or heroism. It was nothing but an unnecessary sacrifice, a waste of a good man, of knowledge, of potential, of... a friend.

Damn Sheppard for that, too. Rodney had been perfectly fine without friends. He hadn't wanted any. Didn't want to belong, didn't want the feeling of someone looking out for him or being there for him. And yet here he was. Caring because Sheppard had cared. Holding on to that unlikely friendship for dear life.

He'd never wanted it. Yet he had never wanted anything more than that.

He was tired of all this. Tired of worrying, of his thoughts racing, of caring, of being awake. And whose fault was that? Who had prompted all of this?

Sheppard. Always Sheppard.

Damn him.

Rodney pushed his feet off the bed and winced when he stood. But determination won. Enough was enough. He'd end this. Now.


	5. Chapter 5

"Dr. McKay, you can't go in there!"

A nurse - the one with the French braids whose name he'd never taken the time to learn - was blocking the way to the ICU.

"No?" He was breathing heavily from the jog he had taken to get down to the infirmary. His gaze settled on the nurse in her bright-red scrubs and he could see her trying to steel herself when his eyes narrowed. She had freckles. Rodney knew that Sheppard liked her. "Watch me."

He tried to move past her but she stood her ground, admirable strength in the slim body. "Dr. Beckett hasn't cleared Major Sheppard for visitors yet."

"I don't care what Beckett says."

"Well, I do. He's responsible for his patients and unlike you, he's the one with an MD around here --"

"No one is with the Major right now as far as I can tell. I don't see the very responsible Dr. Beckett anywhere around here. Do you?"

Her eyes narrowed. "Dr. Beckett has been in the infirmary for almost 48 hours without so much as a catnap before you found the Major. He's resting while Major Sheppard does the same. There is nothing we can do but wait for him to wake up, and it's absolutely not necessary for Dr. Beckett to be present the entire time." She propped her hands up on her hips. "I know that you think you can go without sleep for weeks, but Dr. Beckett does belong to the human race and needs sleep."

Rodney wondered briefly if - judging from the tense face and the flaming defense - the nurse had a thing for Beckett.

"Someone should be with the Major when he wakes up," he declared, stubbornly.

The nurse's features softened. "We're checking in on him every twenty minutes, Doctor. He's going to be fine."

"I'm sure that's what you tell everybody."

She smiled. "Only when it's true."

He'd been agitated when he came here and now he felt himself deflating, anger on the backburner because he couldn't be mad at her, no matter how hard he tried.

He shifted uncomfortably from one foot to the other and winced when the pain hit in a fresh wave.

The nurse reached for his arm, led him to a chair. "Why don't you sit down and I see if I can get you something for the pain?"

He nodded and sat down. "Thank you."

She smiled again and ran her hand up and down his arm in a comforting gesture. "I'll be right back."

He smiled back, lopsided. She winked. Sheppard would have been so proud of him.

Sheppard. From his chair, he could see the ICU in part, but not fully. Could see that ridiculous mop of Sheppard's hair, half-hidden by bandages. Tubes, IV's. Medical equipment.

Thought once again how none of this would have happened if Sheppard hadn't re-enacted the kamikaze act.

Anger welled up, fresh and raw.

Rodney looked to where the nurse had vanished and, seeing that she was busy with another patient who had just entered the infirmary, he pushed himself out of the chair.

Walked to the ICU. Looked over his shoulder one final time, saw that the nurse was still busy, and stepped in.

The infirmary responded to his mental command immediately, sealed the door behind him. He was welcomed by the city. Welcomed by the infirmary. On Sheppard's behalf.

The city's compliance and its will to please Sheppard was almost sickening. Rodney tried to breathe against the sharp worry that rose when he saw the major up close, saw the utter fragility of the limp body. Remembered how each and every one of those injuries had occurred. Atlantis had shown him. Had connected him to Sheppard in more ways than he was strictly comfortable with. All without asking his consent first. To help Sheppard after his idiotic suicide-run.

Next to the major's bed, he finally caved. In the smell of antiseptic and in the dry, warm air of the ICU, Rodney McKay exploded. "I'm sick of this. Do you hear me? Utterly, completely, mind-blowingly sick." Sheppard didn't move, didn't react. All it did was make Rodney more angry. Angry at the lack of movement. Angry at Sheppard for not waking up and trading a barb in return.

"There's millions of addlebrained brushcuts out there. But you had to be the one with the damn gene. Why did you have to be the only one to access this technology with ease? Why did you have to show off in front of Jackson and O'Neill and Elizabeth? Why did you have to come to Atlantis?"

He tried to picture life in Pegasus without Sheppard and failed, but his mouth moved anyway, unstoppable. "We didn't need you. Beckett would have given me the gene therapy sooner or later and we'd have done fine without you. I would've done fine. I could've done my _work_, not bothering with military personnel trying to bond. I would've been all right with Sumner. Of course, after a while, he'd have fed me to the Wraith personally, but at least I would have known what to expect. But not you. You had to care. You and your fucking sense of nobility. _Damn._ Without you, we'd never have woken the Wraith, not so soon at any rate, we'd have had time to prepare for their attack and I'd have been fine. Without a friend, but fine, not in this whole fucking emotional mess. This is all because of you, you stupid moron. Why did you have to care? Why did you have to insist on becoming more than just a military grunt to me?"

Rodney paced up and down next to the bed, his feet protesting, the cuts shooting fire up his nerves when he put his full weight on them. "I don't know if you noticed, but I never asked for friendship. I was fine without friends. Stable, sane, un-troubled and with enough sleep to keep my brain going. But you, you just had to come and waltz past every sign that said 'Keep out, not welcome here'. I never asked to care. Why did you have to make me care?"

Sheppard's eyes seemed to move under closed eyelids, but only briefly, as if the effort was too taxing. Rodney tensed, felt his heart stutter to a sudden stop. Saw that nothing further happened and explosively released the breath he'd been holding. Ran a hand over his face, fighting disappointment. It was as if Sheppard was baiting him.

"You incredible bastard." Rodney pulled up a chair, the metal legs scraping loudly over the ICU's floor. Sat down with a huff that managed to cover his sigh of relief when the weight of his body was taken off his feet. "Stupid, arrogant, selfish bastard. Did you even once think about what you were doing before you took that jumper? But, oh, I forget. It's you."

His hands were moving of their own accord, he couldn't stop them even if he concentrated on it. His agitation grew with every new word. "You obviously never think. See John Sheppard, the hero. See him quip in the face of death. See him fly the jumper undaunted. See him heroically finishing the mission. Heroically die. Let me tell you one thing, Major, your false sense of StarWars-like heroism is completely outdated. Suicide-runs became uncool even before the middle-ages. Self-sacrifice isn't attractive or cool or heroic. It's selfish. And you almost dragged Carson into it as well. You may not think your life worth much, but there are others who disagree strongly, so how dare you just make that choice for me --" He stopped short, realising what he'd just said. "Us. For _us_."

The lapse and the knowledge of the admission that had just slipped out took the wind out of his sails. He rested an arm against the mattress of Sheppard's bed, trying to find support. Closed his eyes for a moment and felt a wave of fatalism surge over him.

"What's the use?" He ran a tired hand over his face, stubble scratching his palm. His head dipped forward to rest on his arm, weariness pulling at his limbs. "Like you'd listen to me. Next time you'll just do the same thing, putting yourself on the front line without thinking twice."

Something brushed against his hand and his gaze snapped up. Sheppard's face was a meshwork of blues and greens, of bruises, patched cuts and abrasions. The white bandage around his head stood in stark contrast to his dark hair. Hair that even now that it was held together by gauze and bandages seemed intent on escaping. But none of those observations held Rodney's attention for long - every newly catalogued bruise just fuelled guilt and helplessness and a fresh wave of anger.

Rodney bent forward, leaning even more on the bed and bringing his face close to Sheppard's, willing him to hear even though he knew that the Major was still unconscious. "I'm not going to let you do it," he whispered sharply. "Do you hear me? No more stupid heroics if I have to knock you over the head and stick you in Steve's old cell."

The brush against his hand came again, more defined this time. Rodney's gaze travelled down to his hand just in time to see Sheppard's hand stretching and lifting off the bed, the movement weak enough to show the physical exertion. Then Rodney's brain went into lockdown.

Sheppard's hand closed around Rodney's, like a baby holding the index finger of its mother; surprising strength in the simple act.

He felt green eyes settle on him from under lowered lashes. Dark, vulnerable eyes, watching him for seconds only before they closed again, the attempt draining strength from the man who appeared so remarkably fragile among the white infirmary linens. But there had been life in that gaze, a spark of recognition. Not the eyes of a man with brain-damage, then. Rant forgotten while every single one of his senses fine-tuned itself on the major, he waited anxiously, impatiently, for Sheppard to gather up the strength to open his eyes again. Seconds seemed to drag into hours. Nothing happened. Sheppard's lips moved; once, twice; trying to form words but failing. The desperate anger welled up in Rodney one final time.

"Did you ever _once_ think about the people you left behind without a choice?" His voice had lost all of its edge, was breaking, cracking. "You stupid bastard. Did you think none of us would _care_?" Just a whisper now. No more strength left. "Did you think at all?"

The rest of what he'd been meaning to say, what had accumulated in him for so long slipped away from him when he felt the other man's hand curl around his tighter. Sheppard couldn't talk, couldn't even keep his eyes open. But he moved his thumb in the tiniest of reassuring circles against Rodney's hand in a gesture that was as small as it was overwhelmingly large and Rodney stilled, inside and out. Body and soul in a fragile peace for as long as Sheppard's hand was connected to his. It was warm against his cold one and everything Rodney had wanted to say was irrelevant suddenly, hollow against the depth of Sheppard's unspoken consolation.

If there was something suspiciously feeling like tears stinging in his eyes, Rodney ignored it. And if those not-tears made their way down to his cheeks, that didn't matter either, did it? Sheppard's hold on his hand was feathery, the palm exuding warmth; dry, cracked skin rough against his own. Despite the blood loss, the major's slim hand was still more tanned than his own. The knuckles were bandaged shockingly white. Rodney's fingers were slowly reciprocating the gesture, curling around the major's hand. He could feel Sheppard's pulse from where the other man's thumb pressed against the back of his hand. The rhythm was steady, calming his frayed nerves, stopping racing thoughts. Something that had been missing for this past week found its way home again, quietly clicked into place.

Fatigue swept over him, causing him to sway on his chair. If he just closed his eyes for a few moments, this would pass, he was sure of it.

He knew Beckett would have his head if he found Rodney here, especially considering their latest argument, but Sheppard hadn't released Rodney's hand yet and didn't seem inclined to do so.

Rodney drifted. The warmth from Sheppard's palm seeped into his, creating an oddly peaceful sensation. He could still feel the major's pulse, assuring him that the other man was indeed alive, not another hallucination. The chair was uncomfortable, already his back was starting to protest. But god, he was tired, much too tired to stand up.

It was when he had jerked upright in the chair for the fifth time after almost slipping off that he felt a hand on his shoulder, carefully urging him awake. "Rodney, get up."

He blinked rapidly a few times, squinted against the light reflecting off a white lab coat. Carson Beckett.

Rodney blanched, painfully reminded of the end of their earlier argument. Protest was immediate, didn't need thinking. "I can't leave now."

"Get up, please." Beckett's voice allowed no argument.

Rodney rose reluctantly and felt Sheppard's hand tighten around his. Beckett regarded him with an unreadable gaze, making Rodney immediately defensive. "Look, it's not as if I was staying here simply to annoy you, Carson, I --"

"Step aside for a moment."

Rodney glared in irritation, his eyebrows drawing closer together. Beckett didn't even listen to his protest and to his explanations. He simply removed the chair, then disappeared.  
Maybe Beckett was off to get security to remove him. Heaven knows he'd have enough reasons to. Some of the things Rodney had thrown at him had been out of line, he had realised that later on. But Beckett gave as good as he got, didn't he? And he had been part of the conspiracy with Elizabeth, he _had_ been the one to exile Rodney from Atlantis. They were both culpable in their own ways.

There was silence for a few uncomfortable minutes, broken only by the gentle shush of the ICU's air-condition and the occasional blip of one of the medical devices. Then the rattle of metal on metal became audible and Beckett reappeared, pushing a gurney in front of him. He didn't look up from his task, simply wheeled the gurney over to Sheppard's bed and patted the sheet on it wordlessly.

Rodney blinked. Blinked again. And again.

The question, the ever-present _why_ burned on his tongue, but for once, he didn't voice it. Met Beckett's gaze and found a tired sadness that twisted something tightly in his heart. Rodney climbed on the gurney, felt Beckett pushing it closer still to the major's bed. He thought of saying thank you, then decided against it. There had been enough words.

A blanket settled over him, and he felt Beckett, no, he corrected himself, _Carson_, pat his head carefully, a little clumsily, the wish for exculpation radiating from the other man.

Rodney didn't fight the grateful smile.

Didn't fight the uncomfortable position Sheppard's grasp on his hand left him in.

Didn't fight sleep anymore.

His eyes closed and among the quiet noises of the infirmary, he could hear Sheppard breathing. Could feel his pulse and the warmth of his hand and accepted how they drew him under.

Sleep came with velvet steps.

  
__

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title reference: The brothers of Morpheus (the principal Greek god of dreams and sleep) — the Oneiroi — are rulers of dreams, and also include Icelus, Phobetor, and Phantasos.
> 
> Morpheus sends images of humans in dreams or visions, and is responsible for shaping dreams, or giving shape to the beings which inhabit dreams. Icelus assisted with those aspects of dreams that reflected reality.


End file.
